Showing all 40 trends, sorted by urgency.
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CriticalFinancial Sextortion
Criminal groups overseas target teen boys: a 'pretty stranger' DM leads to one nude photo, then a screenshot of his follower list and a demand for payment in gift cards or crypto. The threat works in minutes.
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CriticalSexual Sextortion
Coerced explicit images used as leverage for more images or in-person contact, often from someone the teen has been talking to for weeks. Targets girls more often than the financial variant.
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CriticalAI Deepfake Nudes
Free apps and websites that convert any clothed photo into a realistic nude, often used by classmates against girls in middle and high school. Linked to multiple teen suicides since 2023.
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CriticalNon-consensual Image Sharing
An image sent in confidence to one person ending up screenshot and forwarded — to a group chat, a school-wide thread, or a 'leaks' page. Called revenge porn when an ex is involved.
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High“Send a Pic” Pressure
The slow, persistent coaxing for nude or semi-nude photos inside a teen relationship or DM, which mostly looks like normal flirting until it suddenly doesn't.
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HighCatfishing
A fake identity — a fake age, a fake gender, a fake life — used to build a relationship with a teen online, sometimes for sex, sometimes for money, sometimes for cruelty.
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CriticalGrooming Through Gaming Chats
Predators on Discord, Roblox, Fortnite voice chat, and Minecraft servers building trust with children over months, then moving the conversation onto private apps.
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HighAnonymous School Gossip Pages
Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or YikYak-style pages devoted to a single school where students anonymously post rumors, rate classmates, and pile on.
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HighDoxxing
The public release of a person's home address, phone, school, or family info to invite real-world harassment. Increasingly aimed at teen creators and gamers.
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CriticalSwatting and Hoax Threats
A fake call to police claiming a hostage, shooter, or bomb threat — sending a SWAT team to your home or your child's school. Has killed innocent people.
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CriticalOnline Criminal Friend Groups
Discord, Telegram, and Reddit groups that recruit isolated boys into low-level crime — package theft, account fraud, gun trafficking, or 764-style extortion networks.
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CriticalCoercive Harm Networks
Online groups (the '764' network is the FBI's named example) that pressure teens — usually girls — into self-harm, degrading content, or hurting pets, for the group's gratification.
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HighCyberbullying Pile-ons
When dozens or hundreds of classmates, strangers, or anonymous accounts pile onto one teen over a single perceived offense — often a screenshot taken out of context.
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HighSchool Fight Pages
Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok pages dedicated to recording, ranking, and circulating school fights — sometimes encouraging the next one.
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MediumPublic Prank / Harassment Videos
TikTok and Instagram 'prank' content where the prank is actually a member of the public being harassed, scared, or filmed without consent for views.
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HighRisky Viral Challenges
The recurring genre of viral 'challenges' that injure or kill — boiling-water dares, scaling buildings, tide-pod copycats, hot-chip overdoses, car-surfing.
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CriticalBlackout / Choking Challenge
Self-strangulation to the point of passing out for the high — sometimes filmed for TikTok. Has killed multiple children under 14; named in active wrongful-death lawsuits against TikTok.
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CriticalChroming / Inhalants
A TikTok rebrand of inhalant abuse — sniffing aerosols, deodorant, paint thinner, marker fumes — for a brief high. Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome can kill on first use.
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CriticalOTC Overdose Challenges
Challenges that turn over-the-counter pharmacy items into intentional overdoses — Benadryl, NyQuil, Tylenol PM. Cause arrhythmia, liver failure, seizures, death.
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HighReckless Stunt Filming
Subway surfing, rooftopping, climbing cranes, hanging out of moving cars — for the post. Killed at least six teens in New York City alone in 2023–2024.
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CriticalCounterfeit Pills Sold on Snapchat
Cartel-pressed fake Xanax, Percocet, and Adderall — sold to teens through Snapchat DMs, laced with fentanyl. One pill can kill on first try. The deadliest trend of 2026.
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HighVape and Cart Normalization
Vaping content on TikTok and Instagram showing it as harmless, aesthetic, and adult. THC carts ('carts') sold through DMs to middle and high schoolers.
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CriticalDrug “Menu” Accounts
Snapchat and Instagram accounts that openly post a 'menu' of drugs for sale — emojis next to prices, DMs to order. Aimed squarely at teens with disposable cash.
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HighParty Drug Glamour
Lifestyle content that frames MDMA, ketamine, mushrooms, and party-drug edibles as aesthetic, healing, or therapeutic — particularly aimed at affluent teens.
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HighSkinnyTok
TikTok's recurring resurgence of explicit thinness-as-virtue content: 500-calorie 'what I eat in a day,' rib- and collarbone-checking, 'legging legs.' The pro-ana ecosystem in a wellness sweater.
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High“What I Eat in a Day” Under-eating
The wellness-aesthetic food-diary format — almost always restrictive, almost never noted as such. The numbers shown are often below maintenance for an active teen.
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MediumBody Checking Videos
Repeated filming of a body part — waist, thighs, ribs, collarbone — from multiple angles, often disguised as 'transformation' or 'progress' content.
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MediumFilter Dysmorphia
The clinical experience of preferring your filtered face to your real one — sometimes to the point of requesting cosmetic procedures to 'match' the filtered version.
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MediumLooksmaxxing
A TikTok-born subculture, mostly teen boys, treating physical attractiveness as a stacked optimization problem — skincare, gym, jaw-mewing, surgery. Originated in incel forums.
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HighMogging / Facial Rating
Boys posting their own and others' faces to be rated on a 1–10 'PSL' scale — and being 'mogged' (outclassed) by classmates publicly. Body-dysmorphia accelerator.
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LowMewing
Pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth to allegedly reshape the jaw. Harmless on its own; a useful tell that your teen is in the looksmaxxing ecosystem.
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HighSteroids and SARMs Online
Fitness creators selling teen boys on anabolic steroids and SARMs (selective androgen receptor modulators) as routine 'enhancement.' Bought from unregulated online suppliers.
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MediumSephora Kids
Tween and pre-teen girls (often 9–12) using harsh adult anti-aging products — retinol, acids, peptides — pushed by Instagram and TikTok dermatology content.
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MediumCosmetic Procedure Normalization
Influencer content framing lip filler, rhinoplasty, jaw contouring, and Botox as routine self-care for teens — increasingly common gifts at sweet-16 or graduation.
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HighManosphere / Red-pill
Andrew Tate–style content pulling teen boys into a worldview where women are status objects, dating is hierarchical combat, and traditional male dominance is the answer.
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CriticalBlackpill / Incel Fatalism
The deepest end of the manosphere — the belief that romantic prospects are decided by genetics, that 'looks are everything,' that some men cannot be loved. Linked to teen suicide.
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MediumTradwife Aesthetic
An Instagram and TikTok genre romanticizing female submission, homemaking, and pre-feminist gender roles — pitched at teen girls as aesthetic 'soft life.'
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HighAI Companion Dependence
Apps (Character.AI, Replika, and dozens more) that offer always-available AI 'friends' or romantic partners. Already linked to teen suicides in U.S. lawsuits.
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HighMoney-flipping & Crypto Scams
DM scams that promise to 'flip' a teen's $100 into $1,000 via crypto, or recruit teens into fake investment schemes. Often shared via TikTok 'finance' content.
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HighFake Modeling and Job Scams
DMs offering teen girls modeling contracts, brand-ambassador roles, or 'easy money' jobs — that either turn out to be sextortion setups or financial scams.